Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

I am aware that the definition of a gas is not that which metaphysicians would accept as applicable to spirit, and yet it illustrates the idea from a physical standpoint. It is much better to illustrate a question with something with which people are generally familiar. The body and every organ and tissue forming a constituent part of it, is simply the plain ordinary matter in motion, vitalized by what we call life, and this life principle is a mystery, and what is true of the diamond is true of the human body in its entirety. If placed in a crematory, it is reduced to a few ounces of bone ash, and, with the addition of a little acid, this too would soon disappear into invisible gases, so that the doctrine of philosophers, that matter is spirit, is, after all, not so far removed from physical evidence.

Physiological science gives abundant proof that the mind has a powerful influence over the body. By mind is meant all that class of mental phenomena called reason, and the emotions and passions. Doctor Evans says “the body is included in the being of the mind,” or, in other words, that matter is included in the being of spirit.

The thinking quality of the mind is undoubtedly the mainspring of its action, of which the formation of ideas is the highest kind of mental activity. These originate either within the mind or are brought within its sphere by transformed impressions from without, but through the power of the Will these are more or less modified, and may, indeed, be entirely suspended, so that the mind may become entirely passive and not think of anything. It is the exercise of this Will power which may make the operations of thought conducive to health or disease.

Cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am,” is a maxim of Descartes. What we think and give shape to in thought has for us a real existence, and we have it in our power to create thoughts that will have either a painful or pleasurable sensation. Painful sensations have occurred to persons by the conviction of the existence of a cause which would, when present, have produced certain results. Of this several examples are given in W. B. Carpenter’s physiology: “A clergyman told me that some time ago suspicions were entertained in his parish of a woman who was supposed to have poisoned her newly-born infant. The coffin was exhumed, and the coroner, who attended with the medical men to examine the body, declared that he already perceived the oder of decomposition, which made him feel faint, and in consequence he withdrew. But on opening the coffin it was found to be empty, and it was afterwards ascertained that no child had been born, and consequently no murder committed.” The second case is yet more remarkable: “A butcher was brought into the drug store of Mr. Macfarlan, from the market-place opposite, laboring under a terrible accident. The man, on trying to hook up a heavy piece of meat above his head, slipped, and the sharp hook penetrated his arm, so that he himself was suspended. On being examined he was pale, almost pulseless, and expressed himself as suffering acute agony. The arm could not be moved without causing excessive pain, and in cutting off the sleeve he frequently cried out. Yet when the arm was exposed, it was found to be quite uninjured, the hook having only traversed the sleeve of his coat.” In this, and similar cases, the sensation was perfectly real to the individual who experienced it, but it originated in the mind by an impression through the nerves of internal sensation which created the idea or image in the brain, and the external senses to which it was referred had nothing to do in causing the feeling. Diseases are thus created every day, either by ourselves or by those to whom we go for advice. I call to mind a lady who had gone to a distinguished practitioner for a supposed womb disease for some six months. She experienced no change for the better, but kept on growing continually worse, so that she no longer had a refreshing sleep, and her appetite for food was entirely gone. On examination I found her womb entirely healthy, in fact, exceptionally so, thanks to her attending physician, because, after a certain amount of useless doctoring, the rule is quite the other way. I told this lady of her error or delusion respecting her womb, and prescribed a quieting mixture for the night and a tonic for the day. She began at once to improve, and when I saw her again, six weeks afterwards, she had so fleshed up that I failed to recognize in her traces of her former delusion. The disease of which this woman was suffering was imaginary, and had no real existence for anyone outside of herself. She was the victim of the harrowing symptoms which her mind conjured into shape, and an attempt to brush aside the disease, with the flippant remark that “there was nothing the matter with her,” would have been cruel, unscientific, and absurd. The ailment which she thought she had, had as much an existence as though the most malignant disease was destroying her life; for her imaginary disease was doing the same thing, only in a different way.

Imagination is the most powerful function of the human brain. Associated with thought, it constitutes the empire of the soul, which recognizes neither time nor space. With it we are brought into communion with everything that is grand and beautiful in nature. Imagination is the architect of our souls; it continually creates and projects into the beyond; it enlarges the sphere of our thought in building up artificial structures for our pleasure and entertainment. When it becomes perverted and abnormal from false impressions, either through the nerves of internal sensation or through the nerves of external sense, or, what quite often occurs, from morbid thoughts or ideas received from others, it becomes equally potent in causing misery and disease.

Expectation or attention influences, in a remarkable degree, the bodily functions. There are a great many persons who keep themselves in misery and disease by always thinking of their imaginary or real sickness. I had a profitable experience some years ago in my own case, which conclusively proved to my mind the aggravating tendency which constant attention has on disease. I had contracted an ordinary catarrh of the pharynx, or what is generally called a sore throat. At first I did not mind it, but in the course of time, from continued exposure in all kinds of inclement weather, at all hours of the day or night, it fastened itself upon me so that it was at times very annoying by its dryness and pain. I do not know of anything that I did not use, but, after a trial of several years, I was convinced that the more I looked at it and the more I treated it with sprays, gargles, etc., the worse it became, so that one day I resolved to let it alone, and not think about it. I took a teasponful of glycerine once in a while when it became too dry. For years I have not looked at it, and for all I know, it is perfectly well. I stopped bundling up my neck, used light bedcovering, so as not to sweat, and by this simple method accomplished what the very best selected drugs utterly failed to do.

The great English authority, Daniel Hack Tuke, in his work, “The Influence of the Mind on the Body in Health and Disease,” quotes from Unzer’s work, published in Germany in the year 1771: “Expectation of the action of a remedy often causes us to experience its operation beforehand.” And John Hunter said as early as 1786: “I am confident that I can fix my attention to any part until I have a sensation in that part.” A great number of cases are recorded where complete insensibility to bodily pain has been induced without the use of drugs. The intention of administering a certain drug was made known in this manner. Bread pills have acted as decided cathartics, and an empty chloroform or ether bottle put the sensitive into a profound stupor or insensibility.

Dr. Woodhouse Braine, of the Charing Cross Hospital, writes: “During the year 1862 I was called upon to give chloroform to a very nervous and highly hysterical girl, who was about to have two fatty tumors of the scalp removed. On going into the operating room, it was found that the bottle containing the chloroform had been removed to the dispensary, and on testing the Snow’s inhaler, which at that time I was in the habit of using, I found it to be quite devoid of even any smell of chloroform. Then, having sent for the bottle, in order to accustom the girl to the face-piece, I applied it to her face, and she at once began to breathe rapidly through it. When she had done this for about half a minute, she said, ‘Oh, I feel it, I feel I am going off,’ and as the chloroform bottle had not arrived, she was told to go on breathing quietly. At this time her hand, which had been resting across her chest, slipped down by her side, and as she did not replace it, I thought I would pinch her arm gently to see the amount of discomfort her hysterical state would induce her to bear. She did not notice a gentle pinch, and so I pinched her harder, and then as hard as I could, and to my surprise I found that she did not feel at all. Finding this was the case, I asked the operator to begin, and he incised one of the tumors, and then, as the cyst was only slightly adherent, peeled it away. At this time I had removed the face-piece, and, wishing to see the effect of her imagination, I said to the operator, who was going to remove the second tumor, ‘Wait a minute; she seems to be coming round.’ Instantly her respiration, which had been quite quiet, altered in character, becoming rapid as when I first applied the inhaler, and she commenced moving her arms about. I then replaced the face-piece, and her breathing again became quiet, and she submitted to the second operation without moving a muscle. When the water dressing and bandages were applied, in answer to the question as to whether she had felt anything, she said, ‘No; I was quite unconscious of all that was done.’” The mental phenomenon that we observe in this case clearly shows how completely the sensation of the patient was suspended by the imaginary chloroform, which existed only in her mind, yet the real drug could not have been more potent in its effects.

Phenomena of the same mental process, like the different colors of the solar spectrum coming from one source, constitute the different stages or degrees of what is generally called mesmerism or somnambulism, until the sensitive arrives at that condition of complete double consciousness now commonly called hypnotism, in which state the will power of the person becomes entirely suspended, so that he acts only from suggestions of another person, regardless of propriety or consequences. When a subject who has been completely hypnotized is restored to his normal condition, he remembers nothing of what has transpired during the somnambulistic state. We all have acquaintances of whom we speak as being easily led; by that we mean that they have no will or mind of their own. These persons are truly unfortunate, because they are at the complete mercy of every designing person or cunning rogue. They constitute the large army of dupes who support the great number of idle women and lazy men, who claim to be clairvoyants, life readers and fortune tellers. In sickness they are equally as credulous, and when they are a little out of sorts, they would a great deal rather be told that some dangerous or severe illness has hold of them than to hear the truth that, outside of not eating properly, or clothing themselves improperly, or being out late at nights when they should be in their beds, there is nothing the matter with them.